Editors Note: This is NOT a paid political advertisement or endorsed by anyone other than the writer / author of this blog. On Monday, August 19th, Democratic Presidential candidate Julián Castro unveiled a platform focused on advancing the welfare of animals around the globe, both domestic and wildlife. It would raise standards for factory farms […]

They said it couldn’t happen. They said wild salmon would never breach penned-up fish farms. They were wrong. And that’s a big problem. On June 11, 2019, members from the ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ / Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, including Tribal Parks Guardians and members of the Clayoquot Sound Indigenous Salmon Alliance, boarded and inspected open net pen […] […]

President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency has escalated tensions all across the southern border. The large majority of residents who live near the Mexican border don’t want the Wall built. Their reasons include fear of the government’s use of eminent domain, the high probability of flooding from a built wall, concern of escalating tensions […] […]

Just when you thought your food choices were clear and safe. UK firm The John Innes Centre has applied for permission to plant experimental genetically modified wheat and broccoli in open fields at their farm outside Norwich, in the United Kingdom. The research company hopes to begin two small-scale field trials in April. In 2017, […]

When you consider our nation’s health, the quality of our food, its decreasing nutritional value and the increased degradation of our farmland, it’s not a pretty picture — and the challenges related to these issues keep growing. By 2050 the world’s population will likely reach close to 9 billion people. To feed everyone, we’ll need […]

Volunteers help plant and restore a salt marsh in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana

Much has been written about what’s called the worst oil spill in U.S. history – Deepwater Horizon. Now there’s even a major motion picture about it.

What has only received limited national press has been the devastating effect and impact on Louisiana’s marshes, home to over 5 million migratory waterfowl each year as well a large population of brown pelicans, terns, and other tropical birds and a variety of other endangered species. A 2014 pictorial view of the Louisiana coastline was one of the few and sobering accounts of the devastation long after the fact.

Now a study, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, finds the oil spill caused widespread erosion in the salt marshes along the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. And researchers say there’s a chance these marshes might never completely grow back.

Scientists have been concerned about how the marshes fared after the oil spill, which they believe affected at least 1,300 miles of shoreline from Texas to Florida.

Evident erosion of Louisiana’s Barataria Bay marshland

Lead study author Brian Silliman, Rachel Carson Associate Professor of Marine Conservation Biology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, who led the new large-scale analysis, says that the study “documents one of the largest declines in an ecosystem following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Marshes that experienced elevated erosion due to high levels of oiling didn’t recover; they’re now gone, having been converted to mudflats in the shallow underwater environment of the Gulf.”

And a report earlier this year by conservation organization Oceana synthesized research pointing to a wide range of effects. These include endangered sea turtles, bottlenose dolphins, coral reefs, shorebirds and all kinds of fish have suffered increased mortality, developmental defects or reproductive declines as a result of exposure to the oil.

Two years after the disaster, scientists acknowledged that the worst effects would show up over time. Now they are and the prognosis is grim. There are those who are working feverishly to try to stop the serious erosion with a variety of schemes. Will they be enough?

Human beings have a penchant for acting after the fact, when it’s almost too late to recover. Sad but true.

Still, if sheer determination counts for anything, there may be a glimmer of hope for the Louisiana marshlands. As to the marine life that calls it home, the answer is we just don’t know.